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Comment by PaulDavisThe1st

20 days ago

This is just historically inaccurate (and a regrettably common claim among older conservative-ish folk.

Those "minimum wage" jobs that you had a teenager in the 1950-1986 time period? They paid more than minimum wage does now, on an inflation adjusted basis. That $2/hr job in 1962 would be paying $21/hr if it had kept up with CPI.

That's the whole reason why adults started working in them.

Over time, federal minimum wage did not keep up even with national inflation rates, let alone regional cost of living changes. The result is that these employers, who were once forced to pay even their lowest level employees a living wage, can avoid paying even that.

19 comments

PaulDavisThe1st

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kortilla  20 days ago

>and a regrettably common claim among older conservative-ish folk.

This is an excellent way to tell everyone you’re comment is just political garbage and can readily be dismissed. It completely drowns any possible signal out with a huge red flag.

  • PaulDavisThe1st  20 days ago

    You mean that the fact that this mistruth/lie/distortion is predominantly told by people with a particular view of the world should simply be ignored?

    • kortilla  20 days ago

      It’s irrelevant to your point, so yes.

      You’re either making a statement about conservatives or you’re talking about actual ideas. You can’t have a meaningful conversation about ideas if you’re doing tribalism.

      1 reply →

  • Terr_  20 days ago

    "The introduction makes me feel insulted or uncomfortable, therefore your conclusion must be false."

    • kortilla  20 days ago

      Nope, the introduction is unfounded flame bait. So I assume someone using that is not engaging with any intent to have a meaningful discourse.

      It has nothing to do with feeling uncomfortable, it’s a statement about held beliefs being associated with a particular group and there is no evidence to back it up.

      It doesn’t matter who he thinks holds that view. Discuss the idea and refute it directly or shut up. Drop the appeals to tribalism

      1 reply →

ghshephard  20 days ago

I apologize - the point I was trying to make and failed, was that there were no (able bodied) grown adults working those jobs like Mcdonalds 30 years ago. These are entry-level jobs that require no prior experience and no job skills, and as such were ideal for people just entering the job market. The exchange was that teenagers would work these jobs, and that, for a modest sum, they would primarily get work experience and some pocket money.

What's gone awry in the last 40 or so years is that the labor market hasn't created enough new employment in what I could call "career" or "occupation" work - for adults, and as a result, they've started working in jobs that were never really meant for them, certainly not for doing things like paying rent, utilities, etc... and as a result - the working poor as a class has grown.

And $21/hour is not near enough to survive on in my region - (and is also a bit less than what most people in my area make at McDonalds (bay area)) - So you are in a round-about way proving my point.

Let me be as clear as I can be - "Increasing the minimum wage to be a living salary of $40-$50/hour would eliminate many opportunities for people entering the workforce who can't justify that kind of investment currently".

Leave it at the market-clearing level of $20-$25/hour, and ideally return to having teenagers/young adults working those jobs while grown-adults move onto other opportunities that our economy should be creating.

Jobs that that cannot support biological needs should exist as they are great for developing job-skills and experience in youth.

  • lkjdsklf  20 days ago

    > the point I was trying to make and failed, was that there were no (able bodied) grown adults working those jobs like Mcdonalds 30 years ago.

    I think you made that point. The other posters point was that this point is patently untrue. And it's very obviously untrue just by thinking about it for a few minutes. Peak hours for fast food restaurants (and most restaurants) are lunch hours where most teenagers would be in school.

    They also tended to be open late night. The hours that teenagers can work are and have been heavily regulated for a very long time. No highschooler is working the 11pm - 4am shift at wendy's.

    They were very obviously mostly employing adults.

    And if you want a little anecdotal evidence, my father supported my family for a number of years working in fast food in the early to mid 80s during the oil crash

    if you want further anecdotal stories, when in high school I worked retail. There were other highschoolers that worked there, but the vast majority of my coworkers were in their 30s.

    When in college I worked graveyards at a certain 24 hour breakfast establishment. I was by far the youngest. Everyone else on that shift was in their 40s and had kids and families they were supporting.

    We also literally have tropes about the old lady who's been working at the diner for 1000 years... "what do ya want hon?"

    That trope didn't just come out of no where.

    • anastasiaess  20 days ago

      Exactly. My boyfriend’s mom is that waitress trope. She sure was happy when he got an EE degree though. Hard work to do forever.

  • PaulDavisThe1st  20 days ago

    MIT claims that about $35/hr would be a living wage in almost every part of the USA. So that's our "high" point for thinking about this. Currently, it gives $23.06 as the figure for my nearest city (Santa Fe), $28.08 for NYC and $20.16 for Manhattan, KS. I've seen people disagree with these numbers.

    https://livingwage.mit.edu/

    Do I think there should be jobs that would only be done in the context of parentally- or other-provided housing, food and clothing? I'm not sure. I lean towards the answer being no, but could be convinced otherwise.

    I still don't agree with your 40 year take on this. When "fully grown adults" started flipping burgers, it was because you could live on the income that provided. Now you cannot (and ditto for lots of other minimum wage jobs). It was not the case that these jobs were "teenager only" and people took them even though they were impossible to live on, 60 years ago. They took them (slowly, over a period of time) and they gradually changed from teenager only work into "real jobs", and over a slightly longer period of time no longer acted as viable living wage work.

    That said ... sure, the income levels for the lower 4 deciles of the population haven't kept up with things (until very, very recently at least), and this means in part that new jobs at appropriate (lower, but still livable) wages have not been created at sufficiently high rates.

    > "Increasing the minimum wage to be a living salary of $40-$50/hour would eliminate many opportunities for people entering the workforce who can't justify that kind of investment currently".

    Firstly, as I indicated above, I don't think it has to be that high. Secondly, I think that if there are "opportunities" that cannot afford to pay a living wage, I'm not sure anyone is foregoing much by them not existing. To be clear, what is meant here by a living wage is something that a full time job pays roughly 3x the local rental rate for an appropriately sized studio (perhaps 1BR) apartment in reasonable quality.

    > Leave it at the market-clearing level of $20-$25/hour

    "Currently, 34 states, territories and districts have minimum wages above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Five states have not adopted a state minimum wage: Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee. Two states, Georgia and Wyoming, have a minimum wage below $7.25 per hour."

    There is not a single state that has the "market-clearing level" you mention, so "leaving it" there seems impossible. Tukwila, WA is the only city in the country with a minimum wage above $20.

    • WalterBright  20 days ago

      > for an appropriately sized studio (perhaps 1BR) apartment

      I had a roommate when I started out and could not afford an apartment. At the time one could also rent someone's spare bedroom. Government zoning also got rid of boarding houses.

      > haven't kept up with things

      The increasing share of the economy that the government vacuums up comes from somewhere.

      1 reply →

grayhatter  20 days ago

all the sources I see say minimum wage should be around 12 USD where did you source the 21USD number?